Waybound Focus Nodes and Their Implications On Focus Farming (Over 140 MORE Days)

[racooperii]

1 hour ago, Mattoropael said:

You're right, it doesn't.

If they aren't going to fix the BS that is the gain rate and costs though, it'd still be better than nothing. At least I can no-life a few days or weeks in Bere with a booster to (mostly) get what I want, instead of having to religiously come back every day just to sit there for an hour or two.

For people who can no life, then yes. For everyone else, the majority of players I would say, its no fix at all. So in some ways it is as good as nothing, but I suppose some people happy is better than everyone unhappy.

Honestly, I don' think they're going to do what they should do. If anything they're going to make the Convergence Orbs spawn a bit closer, but they'll still be annoying and obtrusive to the gameplay and do nothing to address the issues it's supposedly supposed to address. The costs will remain unchanged cause "We're not supposed get all of this in a week", which is just infuriating how pointless that comment even was. I realize you didn't mention this, but this situation frustrates me with how easily avoidable this entire situation was and I'm hitting rant levels of disappointment at the lack of any real response on their own forums about this issue combined with the responses from twitter I have seen are so filled with this indignation about us even asking what the plans are for this mess of an update on Focus...

[Aphyxia0]

Just remove the scaling pool points system. That would bring everything to a very manageable level. The scaling on the pool points is not thought trough enough. Funny how the Prime Time show had Meg and Reb complete a "challenge" of getting 7k focus on one mission I think? Obviously DE doesn't know how their game works or how players play it which is understandable since as a programmer I rarely want to use things I've made myself because I know of the ugly backend which comes most often from time constraints. So please, seriously think about this focus system change, DE.

[AeneasofTroy]

Gonna probably be reiterating a lot of points already made but gonna make sure that this platform is clear.

FOCUS IS CURRENTLY TOO STEEP A REQUIREMENT

I've been playing Warframe for 8 months. I'm not a several year vet. I passively worked on getting focus a bit after I completed Second Dream-War Within close to the start of those months ago, enough to get that old Zenurik energy regen. I pick up a few other lenses and passively pick up their focus as I go.

I've spent a few weeks at this point just grinding Vazarin to get the health regen unbound. Thank god for redeeming brilliant shards for focus, I get anywhere from 2-3 brilliant shards each nigh cycle I can partner up with two of my other grind-stuck friends. I have an increasing hatred of the defense mission tilesets each day I have to cap my focus which then stops me from doing any work in the other focus schools.

Two of my friends have just picked up Warframe midway through this month. We helped them along to War Within and now they are out in the world of using their Operator. Except they have literal MONTHS of efficient focus farming ahead of them if they want anything cool out of the focus system, over a year if they want everything. That's punishing to new players. Add in financially restricted players who can't/won't buy affinity boosters or otherwise lack any of the meta focus farming builds... you aren't capping each day's focus.

 

Ideas to help the grind

Move focus cap to per school. That way focus farmers running affinity boosters can run several different types of focus grinds or otherwise passively work on other affinities after capping their desired one.

Boost the amount of focus each type of lens gives

Make Operators able to receive focus for affinity gained in Operator mode.

Add additional ways for Operators to gain focus
  -Quest replays
  -Sentient kills

Lower the costs (and maybe boost the cap if you only buff lens focus given)

Edited October 31, 2017 by AeneasofTroy
chrome did a thing and posted early

[WolvenEdge]

B-b-b-bump.

[Fallen_Echo]

This madness needs to get fixex soon, i suggest anybody who watches the devstream should spam them with this.

[ikkabotz]

The real question now is whether DE will change it since they've implemented. .I can't think of many times DE have ever gone back to a system they've changed to "improve" it. .lots of nerfs, tweeks, but rarely do they come back to anything once they've implented to acknowledge their errors. .it's awful. .I won't be surprised if we're stuck with this with only some minor change not really impacting the core issues

Edited November 5, 2017 by komoriblues

[motorfirebox]

 

They're going to change it again "soon" (and refund everyone's focus xp). The two major changes I remember are, you're going to have one single pool instead of having to rank up pool for each school individually; and the focus cap is going to be replaced with diminishing returns that kick in past the current cap.

[jibaro87]

remove limit, remove one digit of every focus investement posible, problem solved

[DreamsmithJane]

Okay, so in dev stream 100, Scott told us they're going to:

• Refund our focus points again.
• Give us a universal capacity pool (rather than making us buy capacity for every school).
• Boost early focus gains each day, and reward us for playing different mission types rather than the same one 5 or 10 times.
• Turn the hard cap into a soft cap, so people can keep farming past 250k in one day, albeit with diminishing returns.

All good news, IMO.

[jibaro87]

hope they get rid of the orbs too, but yeah that seems to be all good news

[cursedmoon13]

Can they make it a weekly soft cap instead? The grind is hard enough without having to do it every day just to be efficient. I think I'm in the minority that likes having a cap, because it gives me a point where I can just say "I'm done", but having to reach that cap after the 10 hour shifts I do at work is not fun, rather just spend more time over the weekend on it without losing out to people with more spread out free time.

I also would give full support to operator affinity going straight to focus for your active school, maybe as if they just had a bottom tier lens on them. Currently, even if you have a lens on your amp, kills with operator abilities give no focus, and I believe I've heard that affinity is split between operator and amp the same way it is between warframe and weapon(s), and the affinity that gets directed at the operator is wasted. This makes even those people who *want* to use operator less likely to use it, because using your operator slows operator progression. It just doesn't make sense. Adding an innate, bottom-tier lens of your active school to operator, would at least create a loop where using the operator makes it better. Not perfect, but much better, imo.

Edited November 12, 2017 by cursedmoon13
One more thing.

[WolvenEdge]

On 11/11/2017 at 9:40 PM, cursedmoon13 said:

Can they make it a weekly soft cap instead? The grind is hard enough without having to do it every day just to be efficient. I think I'm in the minority that likes having a cap, because it gives me a point where I can just say "I'm done", but having to reach that cap after the 10 hour shifts I do at work is not fun, rather just spend more time over the weekend on it without losing out to people with more spread out free time.

I also would give full support to operator affinity going straight to focus for your active school, maybe as if they just had a bottom tier lens on them. Currently, even if you have a lens on your amp, kills with operator abilities give no focus, and I believe I've heard that affinity is split between operator and amp the same way it is between warframe and weapon(s), and the affinity that gets directed at the operator is wasted. This makes even those people who *want* to use operator less likely to use it, because using your operator slows operator progression. It just doesn't make sense. Adding an innate, bottom-tier lens of your active school to operator, would at least create a loop where using the operator makes it better. Not perfect, but much better, imo.

This.

Also bump.

[--CoB--Rooshi]

On 10/17/2017 at 2:01 AM, -..- said:

Being forced to split that into an hour sessions every single day is worse than Runescape level masochistic grinding.

As someone who was actually a maxed level player in Runescape a couple years ago, I don't mind grinding at all. However, even this is ridiculous by my extremely skewed standards. Even Runescape doesn't have a cap on how much xp you can earn in a day. >.>

[ArxDurusMaximus]

On 10/17/2017 at 2:55 AM, Recel said:

What really turns me off of the whole focus system is that you need a ridiculous amount of time farming just to fully unlock one of the trees, and that's if you reach the cap every day.
If you farm passively, you gain a few thousand focus a day, meaning you might as well forget about focus because it will take an insane amount of time to gain enough for one tree if you don't farm at "xp caves", let alone multiple trees.

You could probably get every frame and weapon in game faster than maxing out the focus system, if you grind religiously or not.

Hi.  I'm a MR24 who has been playing for 2 years, passed the 600 day login reward, and Mastered 408/417 available weapons/frames.  In the time I've done that, I have gained (in total) enough Focus in Madurai to put 3 points in Phoenix Talons, 3 points in Phoenix Spirit, 2 points in Inner Gaze, and unlock Eternal Gaze.  That's less than 1/3 of Madurai, and haven't touched any of the others.

So the answer is:  Yes, you can unlock every single item in the game and never come anywhere close to getting enough Focus to even bother thinking about how the system works.  It's Hema on steroids - a ridiculous system that no normal, casual player will ever progress through, no matter how many years they play, because the scale is orders of magnitude out of sync with the rest of the game.

Oh, and for the record, I'm also a one-man-clan, and I'm not even halfway to Hema either.  Loki Prime and its set will rotate out of the Prime Vault, at which point I will end up having mastered every weapon and frame in the game, and I STILL won't be halfway to Hema.  If DE ever wants to talk about which of their systems are broken, I am available.  :-\

[Educated_Beast]

I got an affinity booster at log in over the weekend and played casually, mostly the event which is decent focus due to large amount of spawns and the grineer defence in stage 2.

 

After 3 hours, and regular breaks, I walked away with about 100K focus (I have greater lenes on all equipment).

 

Without specific focus farming, I couldn't even hit half the cap in roughly 3 hours of casual playtime.  

 

Removing the cap doesn't solve the problem.  

 

- We need to gain focus at levels equal to the orb.  Remove orb and give us X10 gains at all times.  Then the huge amounts needed will not be so bad if we are gaining 30K - 40K per 20 minute mission (double that with booster).

 

- By the time we hit syndicate cap, we should also hit focus cap.  That used to be the case but it is no where near true now.  

 

I don't want to play Bere, Draco, whatever the new cow level is.  I want to play "normal" and see results.  I'd say 1 hour game time should yield the 250K cap for a MR24 veteran with all gear, frames, lens on everything, etc.  

 

Use that time playing alerts, sorties, bounties, etc, then work backwards to adjust amounts.  

 

Don't balance toward the grinders.  Most people do not want to play like that and I do not care if they do.  If they hit cap in 30 seconds, I wouldn't give a S#&$.  I'd play my 1 hour regardless and enjoy myself.  

 

As it is, focus is an unobtainable goal.  Unobtainable goals are for real life, not entertainment.  

 

Otherwise, great update.

[Educated_Beast]

Let me put it another way,

 

If all I had to do was buy a affinity booster once per week, have greater lenes on all 4 gear slots, and play an hour a night on any map, and could hit the 250K cap, the values are fine.  

 

But as it is now, I need an affinity booster, lenses on everything, and 6 hours of play where you want (but also chase an orb).  Or resort to pressing the same key again and again on the same map again and again.  

 

We grind because the values are to high then you balance around those values and make it worse.  The result is, I lost interest in the system and never buy boosts.  

 

Maybe I am the wierdo, but I spend less money when the grind is bad, more when I can play casually and make progress.  

 

Guys that grind will always grind.  Forget about them, design the game for regular people with jobs that have money and like your game.  

 

[SpiritNZ]

19 hours ago, Educated_Beast said:

I got an affinity booster at log in over the weekend and played casually, mostly the event which is decent focus due to large amount of spawns and the grineer defence in stage 2.

 

After 3 hours, and regular breaks, I walked away with about 100K focus (I have greater lenes on all equipment).

 

Without specific focus farming, I couldn't even hit half the cap in roughly 3 hours of casual playtime.  

 

Removing the cap doesn't solve the problem.  

 

- We need to gain focus at levels equal to the orb.  Remove orb and give us X10 gains at all times.  Then the huge amounts needed will not be so bad if we are gaining 30K - 40K per 20 minute mission (double that with booster).

 

- By the time we hit syndicate cap, we should also hit focus cap.  That used to be the case but it is no where near true now.  

 

I don't want to play Bere, Draco, whatever the new cow level is.  I want to play "normal" and see results.  I'd say 1 hour game time should yield the 250K cap for a MR24 veteran with all gear, frames, lens on everything, etc.  

 

Use that time playing alerts, sorties, bounties, etc, then work backwards to adjust amounts.  

 

Don't balance toward the grinders.  Most people do not want to play like that and I do not care if they do.  If they hit cap in 30 seconds, I wouldn't give a S#&$.  I'd play my 1 hour regardless and enjoy myself.  

 

As it is, focus is an unobtainable goal.  Unobtainable goals are for real life, not entertainment.  

 

Otherwise, great update.

Fully agree. Should have to make the game a grind to get stuff done. Shouldn't definitely need more than  3-4 hours to get all that stuff done. And then that's not taking into account that people want to play other games as well.

[DreamsmithJane]

23 hours ago, Educated_Beast said:

If all I had to do was buy a affinity booster once per week, have greater lenes on all 4 gear slots, and play an hour a night on any map, and could hit the 250K cap, the values are fine.

Aye, there's the rub. You can hit the cap in an hour, with a booster, if you play Adaro stealth or Bere/Hydron slaughterhouse runs. Playing normally, you won't get close, with or without a booster. I think that's a problem with how we gain affinity in general, not just focus.

[1N33DM0N3Y]

On 17.10.2017 at 7:32 PM, ElMarto said:

I dont understand why we need to use other school's mastery to use a way-bound skill. We already spent a LOT of time leveling it up.

 

 

This !

Is when the real fun start my Operator wears Magnus Vigor on Mask, and Magnus Nourish on Armor.

With this setup she is no more a stupid gimmic like last year, now the Operator is a real deal.

It is intended to refill energy and health at same time, and allow me to play squishi frames like Nova, Banchee again.

So equipment slots wont be wasted for Heal and Energy pizzas.

Its also a good way to change playing style. But the grind locked fun very hard

 

[SlayerAxell]

On 17/10/2017 at 11:14 AM, WolvenEdge said:

Hey, DE, I get that you want to make long-term investement into your game be rewarded, but this is getting ridiculous. You're releasing actual content, that's great and it's one thing that puts Warframe on the top of my games list... as it has been for literal years now (when my internet supports it). You're also making the grind wall extreme for a lot of the new content, which is not good to say the least. More passive players, like myself, who go in for the love of the game and have fun playing it, are left in the dust in many, many ways by this kind of thing... and we're the ones who typically invest the most, as we have the most reason to.

Could you throw us a bone every once in a while?

So true... this new update isnt enought too... isnt just cap limit, is the way it is, you need to wait for the focus thing, go for it, and kill a lot before it ends, then wait, wait, wait, grind grind grind, ups, cap limit. Pasive farmers? hit the wall, focus should work exactly as Regalias, that will make eidolon more usefull for focus too (it is totally useless for that right now)

[(XBOX)B0NGR1P54JESUS]

I really dont understand the big deal with focus farming. grab an equinox, max efficiency and range...stealth kill all the enemies. i make roughly 80k focus per run, with 2 greater lenses on a melee and my equinox. i get my cape in 3 runs. takes me about 30 minutes. diversify yourselves instead of using 1 or 2 frames and weapons. imagine when they implement the diminishing returns for focus. im sure youll still be able to grind for focus this way. just with slightly lesser results.

Edited December 12, 2017 by (XB1)B0NGR1P54JESUS

[WolvenEdge]

On 12/11/2017 at 6:10 PM, (Xbox One)B0NGR1P54JESUS said:

I really dont understand the big deal with focus farming. grab an equinox, max efficiency and range...stealth kill all the enemies. i make roughly 80k focus per run, with 2 greater lenses on a melee and my equinox. i get my cape in 3 runs. takes me about 30 minutes. diversify yourselves instead of using 1 or 2 frames and weapons. imagine when they implement the diminishing returns for focus. im sure youll still be able to grind for focus this way. just with slightly lesser results.

This is exactly the problem. I diversify plenty, but I'm no idle player. I'm unwilling to allow Warframe to become my idle clicker game, it's too hardware intensive and generally more fun to ... I don't know... ACTUALLY PLAY?

I want to play Warframe, not be shoehorned into a boring playstyle for one unrewarding system. For me, that means being aggressively stealthy with Excalibur, Ash, or Nidus; being a damage-turning powerhouse with Volt, Frost, or Chroma; bounding around like some kind of absurdly gliding suit of plate armor with Rhino (his passive plus the Heavy Impact mod are hilarious); creating a living hellscape with Oberon, Nidus again, or Nezha...
It doesn't mean standing in one place with two abilities active for half an hour while I go eat lunch. This is an active game, and I like being active in it, and this system is getting in the way of actually playing the game.

[macbox]

Why don't you guys realize this is something that should be viewed as a passive leveling system. Most games you level up and then you speed hundreds of hours playing without anymore real progression. I don't even worry about farming focus, just grab the buff when its near and play the game. It's nice checking the focus tree every couple weeks and realizing you have enough points to level something up. Just view it as a nice little reward for continuing to play the game and it gives a sense that you are still progressing. Anyways just my two cents. I think it would suck if DE lowered the amount of grind because we would all max out and have no sense of progression left. Seems like most gamers these days want everything right now and I personally miss the old school way of doing things which is what makes WF so refreshing for me,

[True_Naeblis]

2 hours ago, macbox said:

Why don't you guys realize this is something that should be viewed as a passive leveling system. Most games you level up and then you speed hundreds of hours playing without anymore real progression. I don't even worry about farming focus, just grab the buff when its near and play the game. It's nice checking the focus tree every couple weeks and realizing you have enough points to level something up. Just view it as a nice little reward for continuing to play the game and it gives a sense that you are still progressing. Anyways just my two cents. I think it would suck if DE lowered the amount of grind because we would all max out and have no sense of progression left. Seems like most gamers these days want everything right now and I personally miss the old school way of doing things which is what makes WF so refreshing for me,

1) Why would you necro this just to make a baseless rant?

2) Actively farming it takes 500+ days to open up everything and release all the waybounds

3) Doing it passively as you mention will literally take years. That's not good design

[Khalinda]

@True_Naeblis

 

I unlocked all the waybounds and it took me nowhere near 500 days. More like 100 something. Just with the ocasional Adaro farming and lots of eidolon shards which I have plenty. The focus farming is really not as bad as people make it to be.

Play smart not hard.